Mr Morrison said AGL was talking its own book by saying it would cost $840 million to remediate its plants. meaning no-one will want to buy it.

Mr Morrison said "those who are trying to shut Liddell have a vested interest in talking down what the viability of it might be".

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"It doesn't surprise me that a big energy company wants to see a big source of supply go out of the market. I mean, that drives prices up, and that benefits energy companies."

He said if the government had taken the same approach to Arrium Steel in Whyalla rather than secure a buyer to keep the company operating "people would be out of work and that would be the outcome of what (Labor member for Hunter) Joel (Fitzgibbon) and the Labor Party and Bill Shorten is doing in the Hunter Valley"

Energy Minister Josh Frydeneberg also put pressure in AGL on Sunday, sayin it was the national interest dictated Liddell stay open.

"The reality is AGL relies heavily on coal ... AGL get about 85 per cent of their power generation from coal," Mr Frydenberg told Sky News on Sunday, noting its Bayswater coal-fired power station is not scheduled to close until 2035 and Loy Yang will be in business until the 2040

Mr Shorten told the government to stop blaming everyone else and fix the mess.

"Australians have had a gutful of Malcolm blaming everyone else. He's the prime minister, the Liberals have been in government for four years now," he said.

"This is an energy crisis happening right now – not in 2022.

"If I was prime minister right now, I would make sure more gas stays in Australia at lower prices. I would end the war on renewables and implement a clean energy target. And I'd prepare a strategic energy reserve to stop the blackouts this summer.

"It beggars belief that Malcolm Turnbull is refusing to pull the trigger on gas controls - every day he delays, it builds the risk of more blackouts and higher power prices.

"If prices keep going up this year and if there are blackouts this summer, Australians will have one person to blame: Malcolm Turnbull."

More than 10,000 people poured into the nation's capital on the ninth day of protests over police brutality, but what awaited them was a city that no longer felt as if it was being occupied by its own country's military.